


Knew it all along

by varevare (varebanos)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Slow Burn, Substitution, as slow as it can be at this lenght
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varebanos/pseuds/varevare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When life gives you lemons...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knew it all along

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rahn (Rahndom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahndom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Substitution](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/145388) by batboybondage. 



> Happy Bday Rahn!

It was hard to say how had it started. Pent up frustration, a longing that left a gaping hole in their soul, or just the anger and adrenaline that became part of their personalities forming a dangerous cocktail that exploded at just the right moment.

"Why do you wear your hair like Grayson?" Damian had questioned. "Think that if you look enough like him, you'll be good enough for him?"

"If that were true, does that mean that you got an undercut to look like Kon? Try as you might, but you're not going to be getting any more popular like that."

"Just because  _you_  want to fuck him doesn't mean the rest of the world cares about the alien, Drake."

As childish as the exchange might seem, it was enough for them to start a fight. However, apparently it wasn't enough for them to finish it. They ended up fucking on the mats of the cave, hard, but way more carefully that they would have had they been thinking of each other. If Tim didn't look too hard, he could ignore the blood on Damian's lip -because Kon, his Kon would never have a split lip or any of the scars that littered the other's chest.

They didn't say a word during it nor afterwards, not for a full week since it happened.

Then, after another long day and long patrol, another bitter comment came when they were alone. This time, Tim couldn't say who had started it. And instead of starting a fight, they negotiated. No moaning names, no looking at each other in the eye, no staying the night. They were easy to agree to, somehow. They both knew who was the other thinking about. And they were ashamed but they wanted more than they could have, so they worked with what was there.

That was how one isolated incident lead to another, and then it was twice a week whenever they could find each other around the city. After a particularly rough week, Damian showed up on Tim's safehouse. No kissing, no pleasantries, just dragging -or being dragged- to bed and fucking until their throats were raw. 

Tim always woke up alone. He didn't mind, being able to forget more easily this way that his bed didn't smell of apple pie and sun.

 

* * *

 

It had been months, and they had gotten softer. Not soft, never soft, but the bruises faded faster. Maybe it was because the years of frustration had an out now. However, they weren't doing it less frequently at all. It felt like acceptance, in a way. Of themselves and their circumstances. 

Tim opened his safehouse window. It was a Friday, and although they had never agreed on specific days, he was expecting Damian to show up. Fridays were easy, simple thanks to the social expectation that they had somewhere to be, someone to be with.

His night job didn't got any easier on fridays, though, and Tim returned hours after he'd planned to. He hoped that, if Damian had shown up, that it was a short time ago or that he had left without any bad feelings. He didn't want to ruin the peace they'd made together.

The figure in his bed didn't startle him as much. Noticing, after a beat, that Damian wasn't moving, did. 

Another beat, and at the sound of soft breaths he realized Damian's evening had been almost as long as his own.

He didn't think he'd ever seen Damian fall asleep on his bed. Usually, Tim fell asleep first -annoyingly fast, Damian had said once- and Damian was an early riser. And they had agreed on never staying the night, hadn't they? It sounded strange, now. He couldn't find any reasons why Damian staying the night would have been a bad thing.

With a sigh, he took off his uniform and laid on the bed next to Damian. He hadn't even bothered to fully undress, having only taken off his boots. However, they had never undressed each other, and in some way Tim felt like it was more intimate than sex. He wasn't going to touch Damian, now. The other man might still wake up and want to leave immediately, and Tim was certain he wouldn't appreciate his attempt at giving him a good night of sleep. 

He hoped it didn't count as spending the night, at least, without sex first. 

Or without sleeping together, Tim thought, upon realizing he wasn't going to be sleeping at all. He'd found himself wondering what would Damian's plump lips, soft with sleep, feel like against his.

They had never kissed.

It wasn't a they had talked about, really. Just something unspoken between them, born from the mutual agreement of why would I ever want to do such a thing?

Tim wasn't sure what had would happen if they broke the rules, but he knew he didn't want to learn now. So he turned around and gave his back to Damian, forcing himself to think about bright smiles instead of high cheekbones and a snarl.

He woke up alone again, and under the covers Damian had been sleeping on top of.

 

* * *

 

 

Stakeouts were weird. It was as if they had forgotten how to be alone together without getting their hands all over each other's skin. 

Or that was what Tim felt, burning under Damian's long glances.

But there was work to be done, and it was done respecting a reasonable amount of personal space. It was much harder to know how to act then. Should they wait for the cave? Jump at each other the moment they turned off the comms? Was he imagining the way Damian's hand lingered on his when he passed him the grapple gun? And why did he care so much about it now?

"I'm hungry. Do you want to grab anything before going to the cave?"

Fine, so maybe he had been interpreting it wrong. Leave it to Tim to mess up his relationship with Damian single handedly.

"Sure, sounds good," he replied, smiling just enough. "I'm starving too. Come on, I know a place."

Then Damian smiled back, just the smallest movement of the corner of his lips, and Tim's heart dropped. Just sex, right. 

He was done for.

 

* * *

 

After that, it was difficult to keep the façade up. They'd keep having fantastic sex -apparently Damian was getting better with practice- and not talking to each other afterwards. Gone were the thoughts of Kon, which at least allowed Tim to spend more time with the Titans without feeling awkward, now. He often did it, when it felt like too much. He didn't want to ponder if Damian would fall asleep on his bed again waiting for him, because it hurt how much he wanted to join him.

His name had almost spilled from Tim's lips one night he had spent sneaking glances at Damian's face whenever the man closed his eyes. He was breathtaking like that, his muscles shifting under his golden skin and his hair a mess and his cock filling Tim up so perfectly that he forgot himself completely.

He had spent two weeks abroad after that, and Damian didn't contact him even once.

But of course he ended up there again, biting at Damian's neck and wanting more than he could have.

He knew he wouldn't be able to give it up. Not when he had heard Damian's voice moaning and praising him -Dick, he remembered- in every language he knew. 

It was so easy to imagine it was all for him, because Damian kept his word and never broke the fantasy, not even once. Even if they had accidentally met each other's eyes once or twice, he hadn't flinched or looked away and just kept going until Tim was far too gone to notice if he did.

And Tim loved him for it, even if the word love made him felt dizzy and despaired, just as he loved his Cupid's bow and his perfect chest and his tongue up his ass.

It was easier on his stomach, when he wasn't looking at Damian and couldn't know what he was doing, or what he wasn't. Such as looking at Tim with the adoration Tim sometimes had trouble hiding, or mouthing a name with the wrong consonants on it. Which Tim never saw him do, but wasn't that what they had agreed on? Never mind they had broken the "stay the night" rule twice, and the eye contact more times than they could count-

And if Tim could just concentrate on the feeling of Damian's skin against his and his dick up his ass everything would be just fine and he wouldn't feel so empty in the mornings, but Damian was stopping and moving away and Tim couldn't deal with it anymore.

"What are you doing? Why are you leaving?" he demanded, turning around as much as he could and trying to reach for Damian's hands before they stopped touching him. "Damian, come on!"

That was the rule they had never broken, and Damian seemed to notice just like Tim did, freezing in place and staring at Tim with wide eyes.

"I can't do this anymore," Damian hushed out, turning Tim's worst fears into reality in less time it took to throw a punch. Tim turned around immediately, sitting up and divided between covering himself up and picking up the pieces that were left or throwing everything out of the window and doing everything he could think of to get Damian to stay with him. Before he could make a decision, Damian continued. "I love you, and I can't have you like this anymore, not knowing you will never be truly mine. I know you think I don't care because my heart is set on Grayson, but it hasn't been, not since long before we started doing this. And it's going to kill me just as it kills me leaving you alone on the bed every morning, and every time you just disappear for a week, and it's so-"

Tim didn't wait to hear any further. He threw his arms around Damian's shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss, one that came way overdue and that would be the first of many to follow.

And that was it.


End file.
